Story of My Life
by Unravelling
Summary: His scars are the words in this book, scrawled across pages of ivory skin to tell the tale of his triumphs, his failures and everything in between. "Will you tell me your story, from the beginning?" Korroh. AU.


When he is twenty-four, on Air Temple island, General Iroh wakes at the break of dawn in the aftermath of their victory at Republic City.

He sits up slowly, battered body protesting, looking around to see the Sato girl and the two brothers resting soundly in the other beds.

"_Whoa_..." The soft voice freezes him. "That's a _lot_ of scars."

Iroh manages a tired smile as he turns to her, his own exhaustion mirrored in the slump of her normally proud shoulders.

"I _am_ a soldier, Avatar Korra."

"Just call me Korra," she snorts a quiet laugh. "Anyway, I've seen plenty of soldiers and none of them have a _thing_ on those marks."

Puzzlement wrinkles her brow. "Don't you have any waterbending healers in the United Forces?"

Iroh laughs, a paradoxical sound caught between refined nobility and gruff military, quickly hushed to avoid waking the others.

"Of course we do," a wry umber eyebrow lifts in question when he pauses, smiling. "I just prefer to keep my scars on the outside."

The confusion is plain on her face, twisting her features into a comically exaggerated expression of contemplation. Iroh smothers the chuckle that threatens to slip past his lips, waiting for the inevitable question he knows is coming because she's still too young to be truly scarred, to understand the consuming darkness that can come with each patch of marred skin.

"What? _Why...?_" Her voice is hesitant, tinted with something like disconcerted curiosity.

Iroh thinks back to the days of infantile honour, of childhood pride and a bitterness in adolescence that nearly tore him apart. He remembers an old man's words.

"My grandfather once told me that our scars are a part of who we are. A reminder of the lessons learned and memories forgotten," he tries to think of an analogy, settles for, "each mark is like a brush stroke in the painting of our lives. He taught me that by embracing our scars, we can learn from them, grow past them to find new strength and push on."

"Sure sounds like something an old guy _would_ say."

He laughs at that, bright and _free_, because he's had his own fair share of frustration with the elderly and their fondness for being cryptic. Korra smiles, cheekily, and waves at him to continue.

"_My_ scars hold in them the story of my life; of every victory, every defeat and all the things in between," his voice turns solemn and his eyes shut against the visions of the past.

"Each one is a reminder of the things I've gained and the things I've lost–_the people, the places, the pieces of myself_. I wear my marks because they strengthened me, forged the boy I was into the man I've become."

Iroh lets the words fade into silence, losing himself in the flaring energy of the morning sun, wondering if she'll understand.

A cool ghosting touch against his skin snaps him back into the present, golden eyes sliding open to gaze at the girl standing before him. Light pink dusts her cheeks at the contact but she doesn't take the hand away, another unspoken question burning in her eyes. The scar she traces is clean and thin but long, stretching from chest to back over his right shoulder.

"It was a Ji spear. Three years ago, in the Wu Lin region, a man caught me off guard. I got lucky, two inches deeper and it would've cleaved into my lung."

She winces, but moves her hand anyway to brush over the maimed star twisted into his lower abdomen.

_This one?_

"Earthbender. Five years ago, near Taku. I was in the open and the crafty bastard drilled the rock right into my gut. My armour buckled and the whole thing dug in."

Another flinch, another wince and her fingers tremble a little as they rest on an old burn scar that tapers from the back of his right hand to mid-forearm. The warmth of embarrassment shoots up his neck and he almost groans, but maybe a little humour is what Korra needs amidst the telling of this grim story.

"Cooking oil. Sixteen years ago in the Fire Palace Kitchens," he gives her a wry smile when her eyes shoot up to his, bright with incredulous disbelief. He keeps his voice carefully grim for effect. "I snuck into the kitchen to try frying my own fire flakes because mother had banned me from them but alas my then-short stature failed me. The pot of oil tipped and in my panic, I _sparked_ it."

Korra erupts into hysterical laughing, soon joined by his own, banishing any heaviness still hanging about the room. The others sleep through it all, snoring lightly, and when his loud mirth has settled, he continues with a sly smirk.

"It took them _two months_ to replace everything. I stuck by my story of a dragon attack but I don't think they ever really believed me."

The girl bursts into cackling laughter again and Iroh grins at her, glad to get her away from the gloom and doom of his past. Eventually, they settle once more into a comfortable silence, him sitting on the bed with his scars bared to the girl beside him.

Eventually, she speaks, smiling quietly to herself.

"You really do remember everything, huh?"

"Sure do."

She lays a hand over his, the dark brown sharp against his pale ivory skin. Her next words are impossibly soft.

"Doesn't...Doesn't it ever hurt?"

Iroh thinks of days lost to grief and bitter hatred, of self-destructive rejection and the salvation he found in the lessons of an old man. He flips his palm over and slides his warm fingers between hers to gently clasp at her hand, heart quickening as the words spill out.

"Some days...yeah, but part of embracing our scars is learning to embrace the pain. Learning to let it become a part of us without letting it control us. That way, in the end we only grow stronger as time passes and the story goes on."

Korra gives his hand a squeeze and scoots a little closer, leaning into his shoulder as the deep flush creeps across her skin. She speaks first, voice hushed but determined.

_Will you tell me your story, from the beginning?_

_Are you sure? It'll probably take awhile._

_Yep, we've got all the time in the world._

_Okay...well, it all starts in the palace gardens when I was just a boy, trying to save some turtle-ducks._

_Turtle-ducks?_

_Yes._

_From _what_?_

_...The family messenger hawk._

_Hahaha, seriously?_

_I was _four_!_

_That's just adorable. General Iroh, hero of the turtle-ducks!_

_Will you just let me tell the story?_

_Ok, ok, I'm only teasing, go on._

Their connection is forged in the instant she presses chaste lips to his pouting cheek, a laughing promise from a girl of water to a man of fire.


End file.
